Clemmer College Professor of Curriculum and Instruction Lori Meier recently received ETSU’s 2019 Distinguished Faculty Award in Teaching.
The Distinguished Faculty Awards are the highest honors for faculty to receive at ETSU. The award also includes a medallion, a plaque and $5,000. Meier’s accomplishments expand beyond this most recent, as she has also presented at many conferences and published a few papers about the teaching methods in teacher education.
“I’m also happy to have partnered with the [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory] Solar System Ambassador volunteer group,” said Meier. “It’s been an ideal way for me to merge my love of space with social studies and share it with others.”
Beginning at a young age, collecting knowledge about the world around her has been a part of Meier’s identity. Meier received her bachelor’s degree in English from Milligan College, her master’s in Teaching from ETSU and her doctorate at the University of Central Florida in Curriculum & Instruction. In college, she changed majors a lot because she was interested in everything from language, geology, history, science and the arts.
“Eventually, I decided that teaching in K-12 schools would be the perfect place that I could teach about all those things I was interested personally in … so I became an elementary teacher,” Meier said.
Meier began her career in the K-12 school system but found a home in the teacher education classroom, which allows her to be enthusiastic, inquisitive and creative about the world and everything in it. Though she may teach teachers, they have taught her too.
“I’ve learned that when I’m enthusiastic about an idea or topic, that my students will often follow alongside me with this contagious zeal too, so that has taught me that it is okay for me to be myself and to be ‘contagiously nerdy’ about all things in the world,” Meier said.
Meier traces much of her current success to her earlier teaching environments that valued innovation, student choice, curiosity and wide creativity.
“They influenced me for sure that I could be intellectually curious and share that with adults and children alike,” Meier said.
